Fruit Trees for Auckland was started by a group of passionate people who want to see parks, reserves, schools, early childhood centres and grass verges planted with fruit trees – to make free and healthy food easily accessible for the community. They also want to educate people about how to care for fruit trees and harvest and use the fruit.

If you have live in Auckland, then you can sign up on their website to suggest sites for fruit tree planting. The number of trees they plant this year will depend on the amount of funding they receive by 31 May 2012.

Don’t live in Auckland? No problem – start something similar yourself, even if on a much smaller scale. If you have some spare land around your premises, and particularly if your site is easy to access publicly, then why not consider planting fruit trees instead of landscaping grounds. Then make the fruit freely available to anyone in the community that wants to take it – and offer to teach them how to use it (bottling fruit, baking, etc.)

We know several Baptist churches have community gardens, but is anyone out there already growing fruit trees for community use? This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it how it is going.